.. i'm not really sure what to think of this .. should I approve it and let it go public? .. they never asked me if that was okay... I feel like maybe people can master whatever they want after downloading for their own playback, but re-seeding it as a 'remaster' without the taper's permission ... I dunno. I don't really care what people do after my recording is downloaded, but to seed it like that? .. is that commonly acceptable in some trading circles? .. this is the first time i've been exposed to it personally, but I remember there was a big deal with the LMA and taperssection.com a year ago maybe because archive had approved a show that was 'remastered' by someone and the taper wasn't too happy that he was left out of the loop. I'm not a big fan of 'jam bands' and i'm sure this topic has been addressed more-so in that circle, since it is so taper friendly, there are more tapes to 'work with' .. so does anyone have any advice on how to proceed? .. I don't want to approve it to set a precedent, but then again, if it sounds better, i'm flattered someone put time and effort to put out an improved version of my recording, all very well documented, and the original source is still up ... thoughts?

Re: Someone else 'Remastering' as show and uploading it to the LMA as a new seed ... out of line? .. acceptable practice?

I've done a lot of taping, mastering, uploading, downloading, navel-gazing... It strikes me as odd the notion that I should be consulted if somebody wishes to remaster my recording. I like getting credit, but if somebody can do something to it that makes it more enjoyable for someone else, I can't imagine what grounds I might have for denying that, seeing as how nobody stopped *me*.

Which is to say I can't see giving the taper/transferrer any rights over what's done with the recording. If what's done might reasonably be of added value to anyone, it makes sense to put it on the Archive - if not then don't.

The important thing is to document any alterations if only to help the downloaders - and it's always a good idea to credit those who came before.

Re: Someone else 'Remastering' as show and uploading it to the LMA as a new seed ... out of line? .. acceptable practice?

At the end of the day, the music on the archive is free. Sounds like you want credit for your source, but don't feel ripped off, it's not your music, you didn't play it...and if Jack Johnson doesn't mind if people record his three chord songs, you should relax on the "feeling slighted" track if others want to upgrade the quality...beep beep

My own concern is on etiquette issues for the collection: In practice, it's not just what's possible or what's not illegal, but what's polite or respectful to do? Our aim has been to keep both bands and tapers happy when we can. That's the reason we have different levels of opt-out on lossy derivatives, for instance. To me this is in that same realm.

(In a way, there's the same thing going on in the text universe right now with Google project vs. Open Content Alliance project, at least perception-wise...)

As far as the dead shows, I have been in contact via email with Charlie Miller and Matt Vernon. I respect the opinions and concerns from the original tapers, as always, and I never wanted this to cause a big problem. Please do what you will with the show I have uploaded. I will keep my FTP server online 24/7 if anyone would like to access the show that way instead. This will free up the space on the archive, and not clutter it.
There are still about 9 dead shows currently in my FTP archive account, I cannot help that they have not been grabbed yet and sent here to the public archive. All I can say is, I love the music. I'm just a part of the same community as everyone else here. That's the way it's always been. It's all about the music.

Thanks again for everyone's hard work.
Please let me know if I can be of any more help.

I respect the opinions and concerns from the original tapers, as always, and I never wanted this to cause a big problem

I don't think I've ever seen an info file made by Tyler without his email address in it. If you are going to redistribute it, it takes 30 seconds to let him know and confirm he doesn't have a problem with it.

I think remasters are a good thing if they are well documented about what was done and why. Oftentimes the people who put the work into them know what they are doing, and the end result is better than the original in many ways.

Re: Someone else 'Remastering' as show and uploading it to the LMA as a new seed ... out of line? .. acceptable practice?

At the end of the day, the music on the archive is free.

True, but servers cost money. Bandwidth costs money. Engineers need to be paid. Just because the end users / visitors to the library (us) do not pay for it, doesn't mean all this just happens ... It takes a lot of money to keep archive.org up, running, and growing. Allowing things like these remasters to use space (potentially a lot of it) seems wasteful for the money that the archive should be using on bandwidth / disk space for fresh shows / sources.

I could care less what others do to my recordings, my beef is with taking up space on the LMA unecessarily.

Re: Someone else 'Remastering' as show and uploading it to the LMA as a new seed ... out of line? .. acceptable practice?

I really hope everything works out regarding this situation.

I'm not sure what else I can personally do about this now, but I do thank everyone here for all their hard work. Remember, we all bring something to the table: whether it be taping a show with mics, seeding a show, helping a newbie learn the trade 'rules', or having the resources in a professional studio setting to assist fellow contributors (with software and high-end audio gear that others may not have access to). We all help each other. That's all it's about - is helping each other spread the music. Maybe somewhere out there somebody agrees with myself, or at least understands my point of view. We all work together. It's a community.

the music never stopped-

Have a nice day everyone,

-Ben

PS. I do these remasterings and mixes for artists on the side - it is not my full time job. I work here in my studio, working with clients, sometimes for 10 hours a day. What I do here at the archive is something I do to give back to the community. I credited the original taper (as I always do, SBD, AUD, doesn't matter) but I see now that he would have also appreciated an email. I am sorry for that, please accept my apology. What more can I say? I hope things work out soon regarding Tyler's concerns. Peace.

Re: Someone else 'Remastering' as show and uploading it to the LMA as a new seed ... out of line? .. acceptable practice?

That's what I was thinking too. I was more thinking in the scope of precedent .. if this is 'allowable' or cool .. what is to stop 50 people from downloading a seed, each 'mastering' it, some higher treble tweaks, others .. deeper bass ... all that .. each being a little diffrent file set, and each uploading as a new seed. That is a LOT of wasted space. the Archive.org servers shouldn't be bogged down with multiple 'masterings' of seeds. They should only have unique diffrent sources as multiple versions of a particular show. .. space is not unlimited. Maybe these 'remasterings' should be relegated to torrents and trades (all with proper lineage of course)

If there is interest in having 50 different recordings of a single performance - each with its own variation - archive.org will host it if there is space (and there is right now).

I guess that says it from my concern. I'll unfreeze it and let it roll public. I wouldn't mind hearing this 'remastered' version and compare it to the original. I didn't think the original was anything special to begin with, so I was suprised that you chose this one to work with. THanks for putting your expertise to good work, and in the future, just make sure you are on the level with the taper and respect their wishes if they do not want something like this done.

I understand where you are coming from, there is nothing wrong with your point of view or your concerns. I'm sorry I didn't email you earlier. Thanks for all your hard work - taping and uploading shows here at the archive. We all appreciate it.

I think that the thinking by tape traders on ownership has been flawed for many years.

The music belongs to the artists only (and those who they designate).

Amongst the trading community - even in the vast majority of cases where there is no explicit artist approval - there is an excessive amount of reverence for tapers, remasterers, uploaders, etc. The height of the resulting idiocy are recordings which are available "only if you don't make copies for other people".

In the case of Archive and music where the artists explicitly allow trading of music, the music still belongs to the artist, NOT the taper.

Once someone posts something that is not their property, in a public place, they lose all rights to it.

Thus, there is no rational thought behind the idea of tapers having any rights whatsoever over recordings that they have released to the public.

Here is a good example. Suppose Anne Rice writes a short story and allows free public download and copying of it, and to facilitate this, she sends me the text file, and I put it up on the web in Arial Font, since I like that font.'

Do I have any right to prevent someone else from putting a version up on the web in Garamond Font? Of course not! Anne Rice might have the right to say "I'd only like Lucida font used and no other". But, I would have no such right to make such a descision.

Similarly, tapers are not creating the music. They are doing work in the process, which is great, but that does not give them any say.

PLEASE do not give tapers any say.

And that's a lot for me to say - I'm a professional studio recording engineer !

Hi AD, much older, much longer discussion threads here on related topics have made it clear that the consensus of according some respect to tapers and uploaders *as well* as to artists is something that is good for the overall health of this project.

(BTW Note to readers: Posts in the vein of AD's have sparked strong reactions in the past, a few of which required moderation. I would not like to have to moderate any followup posts. Thanks for forebearance on this topic. I recommend just moving on since we had the discussion already.)

Agreed, the issue at hand is more respect than "rights". If taper A does not wish to allow remastered copies of their recordings next to their original here, we will respect that. AD's point may hold true in a court of law, but that's not how we want to run things around here - I like the "health of the community" comment, Diana. Right on the mark.

The biggest taper-friendly-band live music BitTorrent site has this policy in their FAQ:
===
I uploaded a torrent, but now someone is telling me that s/he taped it, or mastered it, or remastered it, (or authored it if it's a DVD), and doesn't want it torrented, and is ordering me to take it down. Is my torrent going to be banned now?

Only if you want it to be. The rights in unreleased live material belong to the performer. Recording it or processing a recording of it does not trick the performer out of those rights nor grant them to anybody else. Tapers, masterers, remasterers, and DVD authors acquire no control or authority over the results of their processing, and you don't have to obey. As the uploader you have some authority over your own torrent, so if you decide to comply with that person's demand and you ask us to ban it, we'll do it for you; but somebody else who doesn't care what that person says might upload a new torrent of it.
===

For most quick video format conversions I turn to "convert avi to mp4" (http://www.freeavitomp4.com/). It handles most of the stuff I want to do when I don't want to get into the details of demuxing and encoding.

Re: Someone else 'Remastering' as show and uploading it to the LMA as a new seed ... out of line? .. acceptable practice?

The entire thread regarding this subject is interesting. My personal opinion however is that it is less desirable to have multiple copies of the same source in the Archive.
I think the taper should be the one to decide which version goes online (using 'replace item'). The version that goes online should be the best available version of that source (not necessarily the unedited/raw tape). And of course, editing/remastering should be noted in the infofile.

Re: Someone else 'Remastering' as show and uploading it to the LMA as a new seed ... out of line? .. acceptable practice?

Well, to take it further, how about uploading *2 dozen* personal remasters of each show, as long as they're all there? :P ...I think it's a valid topic for discussion if the affected people care- which Tyler does.

I think the last time this came up, it was to take the redo down if the original taper objected? If I get a chance to find some old discussions later I will followup here.

Re: Someone else 'Remastering' as show and uploading it to the LMA as a new seed ... out of line? .. acceptable practice?

If this remastering will cause a problem for the original taper, please remove it from the archive. I simply wanted to spread the music, not step on toes. Here @ the studio I have DATs and CDRs floating around. I have remastered and uploaded many dead shows and other bands here @ the archive. I have absolutely no problems respecting the views and requests of the original taper. We're all in this community together. It's all about the music here. The music never stopped...

"i sent the archive 15+ shows, so they should be up soon." ... isn't the LMA not currently letting users upload / import their GD recordings? ... And so it is allowed for people to remaster SBD's .. is the LMA going to allow the gates (floodgates?) on all these ind. remasters of GD shows? .. should they also be moderated by the GDgroup that is currently working on those? (matt).